The poetry of "Ten New Songs"

[mat james]

"Love itself was gone"

We have two concentric circles of differing diameters
when the centres of both are connected
which one is centred best?
How could one differentiate the centres?

The circumfrences may differ (may occupy different space)
but the centres are identical;
undifferentiated unity
I am Who Am

...and love itself; was gone

as Leonard enters the mystic
becomes mystical union
drops back into Being
God

and love itself was gone.

[mat james]

“All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance,
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance.”

“All busy in the sunlight”
Most of us have been located in a quiet little room with light streaming in through some gap; a window or crack in the wall or hole in the roof…
The stillness there on a sunny morning or afternoon!
Darkness in the room but for that intrusion of shafts of light, beams “of love” as Leonard calls them.
Your mind; still as that room. Specks of dust, floating,

“all busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance
…and I was tumbled up with them...”

Contemplation: We have been there too. And contemplation occurs when we lose ourselves among that floating “dust”.
Or as the Old Testament says, Dust unto dust; “out of which the Nameless makes a Name for one like me”.

“All busy in the sunlight” also takes me to Moses and his burning Bush.

MatbbgJ

[GinaDCG]

A note on an earlier topic on this thread:

"But I had to do it drunk"

I see this is not so much a specific reference to Cohen's own life as a more general observation on our shared challenge of achieving perspective on our shared mortality.

We are creatures of limited time and space but we need the perspective of infinity (G-d) in order see clearly, and rise above, our temporal and spatial limitations. Wer'e "drunk" in our existence, but we must find a way to fight our "drunk" limitations to see what is real.

[GinaDCG]

We're the dust that can think. Reality is when we realize that we are somewhere between being "tangled up with them/ In formless circumstance;" AND the recipients of a love which "goes on and on'" a love which has given us a "name," and the grace which sometimes lets us see our "dustness" as well as our ties to "the nameless."

My favorite Cohen song (at least this hour.)

[mat james]

Reality is when we realize that we are

Too didactic, Gina.
(My apologies Gina. I am the one who is "too didactic".

[GinaDCG]

Reality is when we realize that we are

Too didactic, Gina.

Touche. (Note to self: Never post in the morning before the tea's caffine has taken effect!)

[mat james]

[mat james]

Let’s do the holistic thingy. My mind is focusing on this verse below, lately, and I read it anew.

That don't make it junk

“I tried to love you my way,
But I couldn’t make it hold.
So I closed the Book of Longing
And I do what I am told.”

Leonard has done the apostate’s rebellion and fallen in love with his g~d, his own way. Like any true lover must. But innocent exuberance is not always enough; is not always successful, not ever-present. And it is hard to play the lone ranger indefinitely and it is all so hap-hazard, this laissez faire longing.
Like any lover, he longed for union and perhaps succeeded, but requited love can dissolve and remain elusive, once again.
…so Leonard abandons his individualised path to union with his beloved g~d and adopts a tradition for what he terms, as I remember it, “the mental technology” of Zen. He needs to develop a useful “method” to utilise in his ongoing quest for “union” (communion/co-union)

…so I closed the Book of Longing
And do what I am told.

In short, he ventures back to tradition. Probably not only Zen and Roshi’s method, but also his own Jewish traditions as well.

[mat james]

We are creatures of limited time and space but we need the perspective of infinity (G-d) in order see clearly, and rise above, our temporal and spatial limitations. Wer'e "drunk" in our existence, but we must find a way to fight our "drunk" limitations to see what is real....Gina DCG

"we are drunk ....and must find a way to fight our "drunk" limitations to see what is real."

That makes a lot of sense to me Gina.
Awaken' from that drunk perspective, so to speak.
But why do you think Leonard ' had to do it drunk'?

[holydove]

But why do you think Leonard ' had to do it drunk'?[/quote]

If you don't mind me jumping in, & offering a thought: in Buddhist terms, if "the bottle" represents the realm of samsara (the realm in which our ordinary minds exist - trapped in the cycle of birth, old age, sickness & death) - a realm ruled by desire/attachment/addiction/etc. - the only tool we have, with which to attempt to transcend samsara/desire & attain the awakened state, is our ordinary/samsaric/drunken mind - so we have to do it drunk. (Drunk on desire). It's similar to the Buddhist idea of using concepts (e.g. zen koans) in order to transcend conceptual mind - you contemplate concepts that make no logical sense until your mind is so confounded that it finally stops, something opens, there is stillness, & in the stillness, something else happens. But we have to use our samsaric, conceptual, drunken mind because it is the only means available to us, where we exist. . .

[mat james]

“If you don't mind me jumping in,”

Please do jump in holydove.

“…the only tool we have, with which to attempt to transcend samsara/desire & attain the awakened state, is our ordinary/samsaric/drunken mind - so we have to do it drunk.”

I’ll drink to that!

Thanks for the thoughtful and insightful input h.d.

Mat.

[lonndubh]

Do ye think there's ever any chance that the 'drunk ' here is the kind of drunk one might get after drinking $300 scotch with Roshi

[mat james]

hi lonndubh,
"...drinking $300 scotch with Roshi.".
That sounds like a great way to get drunk. Quality Scotch and fascinating company.
would be out of this world
Mabe you're right.

[TineDoes]

That sounds like a great way to get drunk. Quality Scotch and fascinating company.would be out of this world

Hallo, Did everybody get drunk on the scotch or get lost in drunken minded contemplation? There are still 8 more songs to go in this Album of Ten New Songs.
I loved reading all your great thoughts on the other songs and was really hoping that this tread would soon get to one of my favourites :"You have loved enough".

I think, in very limited words, this song is about someone who comes begging to be loved. But, instead of getting the love he asks for he is put down, his pride gets broken to such an extent until he has no ego left, until he is beyond feelings of love or hatred and has no 'will' left. Only when he is so far down, so completely broken so robed of the 'self', can he be 'open' to receive true love.
I am very interested to hear your, more knowledgable interpretations of this song, especially the lines "And when the hunger for your touch Rises from the hunger".

Tine

YOU HAVE LOVED ENOUGH

I said I’d be your lover.
You laughed at what I said.
I lost my job forever.
I was counted with the dead.

I swept the marble chambers,
But you sent me down below.
You kept me from believing
Until you let me know:

That I am not the one who loves –
It’s love that seizes me.
When hatred with his package comes,
You forbid delivery.

And when the hunger for your touch
Rises from the hunger,
You whisper, "You have loved enough,
Now let me be the Lover."

[mat james]

Hi TineDoes,
Thanks for the response, ideas and input. As to your posting above, I'll say what I see, so to speak.

...I swept the marble chambers,
But you sent me down below.
You kept me from believing
Until you let me know:

That I am not the one who loves –
It’s love that seizes me.
When hatred with his package comes,
You forbid delivery.

And when the hunger for your touch
Rises from the hunger,
You whisper, "You have loved enough,
Now let me be the Lover."

There are different ways of reading/interpreting this poem/song.
I like to look for mystical alliances.

So; one interpretation could be:
The “you” and the “Lover” are interpreted as soul or maybe god.
“I am not the one who loves, it is love that seizes me” is to say that when we allow ourselves to be overcome by love, we allow g~d into our being and g~d is doing the loving, not us.
Then it follows that when we “hunger” for g~d’s love, we allow g~d to inhabit us.
Therefore g~d says to the soul (and the person the soul inhabits)
, "You have loved enough,
Now let me be the Lover."

…and Leonard’s response is

“You kept me from believing
Until you let me know:”

By the way, I love the zen-ish description of heaven and earth, “I swept the marble chambers, But you sent me down below.”

Mat.